the silent house.

"If my last meeting with her had not been such as it was, Nelly," said
he, falteringly; "if we had not parted in anger, I think I could go with
a lighter heart."

"But don't you know Julia well enough to know that these little storms
of temper pass away so rapidly that they never leave a trace behind
them? She was angry, not because you found fault with her, but because
she thought you had suffered yourself to be persuaded she was in the
wrong."

"What do I care for these subtleties? She ought to have known that when
a man loves a girl as I love her, he has a right to tell her frankly if
there's anything in her manner he is dissatisfied with."

"He has no such right; and if he had, he ought to be very careful how
he exercised it."

"And why so?"

"Just because fault-finding is not love-making."

"So that, no matter what he saw that he disliked or disapproved of,
he ought to bear it all rather than risk the chance of his remonstrance
being ill taken?"

"Not that, Jack; but he ought to take time and opportunity to make the
same remonstrance. You don't go down to the girl you are in love with,
and call her to account as you would summon a dockyardman or a rigger
for something that was wrong with your frigate."

"Take an illustration from something you know better, Nelly, for I 'd
do nothing of the kind; but if I saw what, in the conduct or even in the
manner of the girl I was in love with, I would n't stand if she were my
wife, it will be hard to convince me that I oughtn't to tell her of it."

"As I said before, Jack, the telling is a matter of time and
opportunity. Of all the jealousies in the world there is none as
inconsiderate as that of lovers towards the outer world. Whatever
change either may wish for in the other must never come suggested from
without."

"And did n't I tell her she was wrong in supposing that it was Marion
made me see her coquetry?"

"That you thought Marion had no influence over your Judgment she might
believe readily enough, but girls have a keener insight into each other
than you are aware of, and she was annoyed--and she was right to be
annoyed--that in your estimate of her there should enter anything, the
very smallest, that could bespeak the sort of impression a woman might
have conveyed."

"Nelly, all this is too deep for me. If Julia cared for me as I believe
she had, she 'd have taken what I said in good part. Did n't I give up
smoking of a morning, e